Brits don't make eye contact with, speak to, or touch other life-forms;
More accurately Southerners, and even more precisely Londoners.
Finns don't associate nudity with sex.
A cold weather phenomenon?
re: 1
Lies!
Londoners will touch people to push them out of the way, or will bump into them because they can't be fucking arsed to watch where they are going because they are so busy and important being busy and important.
More accurately Southerners, and even more precisely Londoners
yes, those Yorkshiremen and Highland Scots are famous for their warm and garrulous nature.
If you want to move to Omaha, I know people.
yes, those Yorkshiremen and Highland Scots are famous for their warm and garrulous nature.
But they do, for instance, talk to strangers.
I was at home last night with a Colombian, a Spaniard, a Serbian, and a Lebanese, and we were discussing kissing rituals. My rule was that in Brooklyn, you get *one* kiss. I am willing to go two, but three (as a Korean-American woman who had been to Paris a few times used to insist of me) is simply unacceptable.
In the Midwest, you get a hug if you're close friends, maybe a handshake if less close, or nothing. I sort of miss shaking hands; it's a nice habit and I only get to deploy it in New York when meeting people in a business setting.
I was at home last night with a Colombian, a Spaniard, a Serbian, and a Lebanese
If Americans were more varied in their use of ethnic stereotypes, that would be the opener of a good joke.
I run into this on business. In Mexico, the standard even at a business meeting is men and women do the kiss on the cheek. This makes me intensely uncomfortable for some reason. Hand shakes all around, that's my rule.
Mostly I adopt the view of LB in the OP, except that given my California upbringing, I am fine with hugs for both men and women as a greeting or farewell if they are friends. It's just the kissing thing that puts me off. I am sure this says something bad about me.
My rule was that in Brooklyn, you get *one* kiss.
Because Brooklynites have lousy dental hygeine.
Setting aside Londoners (do let's set aside Londoners!), I think most Brits below pensionable age do one or two kisses for close friends, air kiss for slightly less close or where it's not clear what to do and shake hands for the rest.
Whenever I have met Spanish and Portuguese women for the first time, they kiss me on both cheeks. This always surprises me, though I suppose it shouldn't.
Finns don't associate nudity with sex.
Because they have scales, I think.
We need to take up bowing. Or Kow-towing, to elders and Texans.
Watched a recent Korean movie the other night, and noticed the shallower, almost perfunctory bows. But bows they were.
Finns don't associate nudity with sex.
It probably wouldn't be the first thing on your mind if you found yourself naked in an arctic winter either.
Def Leppard is performing here with Heart this summer. I'm hoping this is a national tour so the rest of you don't miss out.
re: 17
I still have a hatred for Def Leppard that burns brightly.
"I suppose a rock's out of the question?"
Load, aim, fire.
18: Are you asking yourself "How to you get them alone?"
Handshakes are okay if absolutely necessary. People I don't know well who try the hug and kiss thing make me extremely uncomfortable. Also, I don't know that many Americans who do it; I guess I don't run in the right circles?
The "thing" they kiss the the check, right? I've known a few people who did that and it has never bothered me. It has also never been common in any environment where I have been. And I've never seen it violate standard heterosexuality. That is, guys kiss only women. Women can kiss whoever they want.
Finns don't associate nudity with sex.
It probably wouldn't be the first thing on your mind if you found yourself naked in an arctic winter either.
With certain partners, they often experience a sudden disgust and pass it up. This is the famous Finn Icky phenomenon.
I grew up with just a hug as the norm. I know people who kiss, but I'd associated it with rich/educated northeasterners rather than with big cities.
The only Americans I know who do the kiss on the cheek thing are all from the New York metro. I didn't grow up doing it and always feel a little weird. Hugs are for friends, not acquaintances.
The distinction of "flirting with everyone" vs. "flirting only when you're attracted to someone" is a little fuzzy. I'll flirt anytime I want to set someone at ease, socially. If I were really hitting on someone, they'd know.
#6: "You're not from round 'ere" doesn't really count as conversation ;-)
(I've never found Londoners to be unfriendly or lacking in conversation with strangers, which is often rather irritating as I'm quite antisocial, insular and clannish myself due to the whole Welsh thing. What does happen a lot, is that gangs of lads from oop North come down for the week, barge around on the Tube at the most crowded times of day not knowing where they're going, go out to pubs and act like drunken boors, then go home telling each other how unfriendly Londoners are).
Women can kiss whoever they want.
I consider the greater acceptance of women physical touching to be an aspect of the patriarchy. Not in restrictions on men, but women being given permission to touch strangers and acquaintances because they are considered harmless, infantilized, not quite human. Small children are also given more permission. As so often, the oppressed class sometimes uses this permission as an opportunity to be aggressive, assertive, controlling.
The reactions when I have rebuffed "touchers" are usually the same for aggressive men and women, kind of a smiling "caught me," but there are some women who seem sincerely hurt.
27. It's true that a site listing pubs (in any city) where loud pissed up idiots from out of town would feel most at home would probably be a benefit to the rest of us, but I suspect that anybody who tried it would find brewery briefs on their case quickish.
I infinitely prefer a social hug to a social kiss. It's hard to screw up a hug; there are all kinds of ways a kiss can go wrong, particularly for those of us who don't read physical cues well and aren't particularly comfortable with the ritual in the first place.
And yes, I like living in the midwest, where the kissing problem doesn't arise a whole lot, apart from transplanted east-coasters.
I'll flirt anytime I want to set someone at ease, socially. If I were really hitting on someone, they'd know.
But do people sometimes think you are hitting on them when you're not? I known women who enjoyed casual flirting to have that problem.
You do have to monitor the other person's response. If someone seemed to be responding more sexually than I intended, I'd give them a chance to see me treating several people warmly/openly, so that it seemed less specifically targeted to the first person.
I hate being touched. I can't even handle people I've known for years tapping me on the shoulder. I grew up in Massachusetts.
This used to be a big problem in California where women are very touchy. I worked with a woman that has psoriasis on her arms, which made nasty angry welts on her skin. I flinched when she touched me because I always flinch, but I was always so worried that she thought I was secretly disgusted by her skin.
It's been a lot easier in Utah. People here don't touch each other at all. At least not my co-workers.
Oh, man, there are so many ways to screw up a hug.
34: You have no be careful to avoid cupping anything.
I also really enjoy flirting, and used to do it all the time. But then dealing with male aggression became kind of a problem. Even after I was very careful about monitoring people's reactions, and careful to make sure they knew I wasn't into them, didn't matter. It was as though they "knew" better. Either way, what I'd actually say about what I wanted didn't matter. And at that point it all became a lot less fun.
I still do it when stuck at dinner parties or what have you where everyone's being awkward. But then, I also enjoy the awkwardness.
Oh, there absolutely are. Full contact? Lingering? Where's your hand? Is there a backrub? Then there's the perfunctory hug, which, you know, why bother? It's like a pity hug. Just sad.
I find hugging people I don't know very well, or feel very attached to, to be kind of stressful.
I find not liking the social kissing thing kind of embarrassing, because it's really based on not wanting to touch some people. There's plenty of people where I don't mind a social hug or kiss, some where I rather enjoy it in a flirty kind of way, but a noticeable minority where there's something about the person that or my relationship with them that makes me physically defensive -- either I find them physically distasteful somehow, or there's some kind of hostile or tense undercurrent, not enough to keep from being friendly but enough that I'd really prefer not to be touching them.
And so I hate that leave-taking moment when the social kissing happens, because I feel bad about putting people in those categories.
Finns don't associate nudity with sex.
Because everyone is naked together in the sauna all the time.
And I'm a terrible clumsy flirt -- no sense at all about how I'm coming across. I'm more relaxed about it than I was when I was young and single, because the stakes are so low these days, but I never got good at it.
There's also the "did you just smell me?" hug, which is not as bad as the "oh, God, they're going to think I just smelled them" hug.
Look, these things happen. And our language is inadequate for hug description, so you can't even laugh it off. Germans? Any help?
yes, those Yorkshiremen and Highland Scots are famous for their warm and garrulous nature.
Don't know about Yorkshiremen, but Highlanders certainly are in my experience. The difficulty normally is extricating yourself from the conversation.
44 just gave me something new to worry about.
Growing up a flinty New Englander, I never hugged anybody. Living in drug-fuelled, rave-y California, I hugged everybody. Verdict: I think hugging is better, despite the ways it can be a bit fraught. The fake kissing thing I find deeply weird and hard to navigate, though.
43. Yes, me too. I hated flirting, because I was usually taken as sexualising the thing embarrassingly when it's furthest from my mind. I think it's because my natural conversational register is in the area where people often don't know if I'm being serious or not.
44. The Germans have 40 words for hugging?
I've never had a non-awkward fake kiss. I wouldn't be surprised if I've bruised lips.
50: And 35 of them are for situations that are usually not fatal to either party.
I do sort of enjoy flirting with opposing counsel, because there creating uncomfortable awkwardness can be a win, and I bow to none in my ability to create and endure awkwardness.
Recent phone conversation with a lawyer I'd spoken to once in my life before:
Him: How's my favorite lawyer? How many attorneys call you up and say that, eh?
Me: All of them. I'm a ray of sunshine.
Him: [Long pause, followed by beginning to actually talk about the case.]
My people are huggers and kissers. I'm guessing that hugging and kissing is the norm in Virginia, but it might just be me.
You people who are weirded out by touching and being touched have turned your backs on your essential ape nature. Primates that don't get regular physical contact (think social grooming) turn neurotic and mean. And huge chunks of this country are definitely neurotic and mean.
Primates that don't get regular physical contact (think social grooming) turn neurotic and mean.
On the other hand, we don't have fleas.
we don't have fleas.
We can't all be as fancy as you Brits.
Don't worry about me, apostropher: I built myself some wire friends.
You people who are weirded out by touching and being touched have turned your backs on your essential ape nature.
No, I'm touchy and snuggly as all get out, with the people I touch. (Remember the Calvin and Hobbes strips where whenever Calvin came home Hobbes would pounce and knock him down? Coming home from work is like that -- I end up buried under a pile of increasingly large and muscular children. They're starting to worry me.)
Being weirded out by the social touch is about wanting to draw distinctions between who I touch and who I don't that aren't the same as who I socialize with. I don't really want to socially hug someone who I wouldn't actually enjoy snuggling with. (Handshaking is good. I'll shake anyone's hand who I don't morally disapprove of.)
In grad school, I had a two-month work stay in Paris. I got along well with one of the young profs in the group, he and his wife took me out for a social evening. We met one of her friends, who was hot and funny, ran a knockoff designer jewelry business. This vision of a woman greeted me with a completely casual kiss on the lips.
The friendliness of foreigners is much easier for me to understand than the friendliness of either Frenchwomen or Americans of either gender. I have a hard time distinguishing merely polite casual sociability from less brittle friendliness. And I grew up mostly in Chicago.
60: Nooooo! You fool. Plushie friends or you'll go snap and have to work in customer service.
57: My kids got lice from Little League two summers ago, and man, there's nothing that'll make you feel like a big monkey more than spending twenty minutes on each kid, every day for a week, combing their hair for nits. I felt compelled to follow the nitpicking session with a banana.
The linked article totally forgot to include a list of how many times you are supposed to kiss people in a greeting, depending on where you are/where they're from. I constantly get thrown off by whether or not we're done after 2 kisses or if we're still going back for a third.
Doing either one, if the other person is doing the other one, is awkward and makes me feel both ignorant and resentful. Pick a kissing ritual and stick with it, you crazy foreigners!
64: Then you'd have to wash the banana out of their hair.
On the other hand, we don't have fleas.
My office has fleas.
I don't really want to socially hug someone who I wouldn't actually enjoy snuggling with.
This would largely render the man-hug extinct. Also, I'll bet hugging is more hygienic than handshaking.
Yup. And, on occasion, a kitten.
I mean that hugging is more hygienic than kittenshaking.
On the other hand, we don't have fleas.
Our loss. If you read the unexpurgated versions of the Grimm brothers' folk tale collections, you find that in mediaeval Europe de-lousing each other functioned as a form of foreplay.
I think you need an actual cat to catch mice.
64: C's daycare has had a couple outbreaks of lice this year, though she has managed to escape uninfested so far.
This would largely render the man-hug extinct.
Not everywhere. Samoan boys and men were wildly platonically snuggly with each other -- a bunch of teenage boys talking would be piled up like puppies. It was awfully cute, once I got past thinking it looked weird.
75: The lice wanted to get a Head Start.
In my experience, every single friend will have a different idea of what to do in leavetaking, and what happens when the members of a given group disperse depends largely on who initiates his favored process first, or which is more involved, because the less-involved process can usually be converted into the other if the other party is sufficiently determined. Since the party who thought the less-involved process was in the offing will be the one who looks foolish, there's no penalty for the partisan of the more-involved process.
there's nothing that'll make you feel like a big monkey more
Have you tried sitting in a tree and slinging feces at people who walk by?
no penalty for the partisan of the more-involved process
Or masturbating while behind a glass panel?
81: Yeah, but she picked me out of the police line-up straight away and I didn't even get to finish.
The Finnish don't equate sex and police line-ups.
There is an old-ish woman at church who is kind of a hoot and very young at heart who kind of pinched me on the cheek the other day. I do look very young, and we have gotten friendly. It was unusual, but it didn't disturb me.
I lived in the Northeast for many years, and go back there to visit periodically, and I have never seen anyone kiss socially there. Not once. Is this just a NYC thing?
I have a friend who always hugs, but he definitely has issues with women thinking he wants more. Sometimes this happens when he makes fast friends with someone and then pulls back emotionally. To outsiders, it does often look as if he's interested.
I think hugs are fine in theory, and have even never objected to them in practice, but as far as self-initiated departure rituals go, I'm practically in the "the most we can do is wave to each other" camp.
87: I've seen it in Boston, occasionally.
80: one of the anecdotes in Prison Songs involves a young Russian artist who, at parties as either a trick or a means of getting attention, would take out his penis and thwack it on tables.
If you're uncomfortable hugging...
I lived in the Northeast for many years, and go back there to visit periodically, and I have never seen anyone kiss socially there. Not once. Is this just a NYC thing?
I've been in Pennsylvania my whole life and have never seen it either. Like most things on Crooked Timber threads, "Middle-class and upper-middle class people on the east coast" means "Upper-class NYC people". Or maybe it actually means "California people".
I've never seen it in Pennsylvania. I'd assumed mullets stopped it.
People kiss socially down here, but, you know (from the last iteration of this conversation).
Isn't pointing out the endlessly repetitive nature of unfogged conversations a little, well, overfamiliar?
New nude Finns find nude news fun in Newfoundland.
I've never even seen it in California. The hugging I've seen.
I end up buried under a pile of increasingly large and muscular children. They're starting to worry me.)
At some point you're going to have to face up to the facts and release them into the wild.
I encountered a lot of social kissing when I was with my ex, whose network brought me into contact with elderly Filipino relatives, Europeans, and pretentious asshole urbanites. I never got used to it, and if I had been less afraid of offending/hurting feelings I would have refused altogether. Now I'm free of all that and back in the world of universally mandatory social hugging, which is perfectly normal and feels quite comfortable.
100 is nonsense. Go with glue traps.
99: I've never seen it in California.
Wow, I even read the thread in 95. I forgot the part where New Yorkers yet again try to efface Philadelphia -- the birthplace of our nation -- from existence.
To clarify, 101 is descriptive of my experience in California. Be careful, there lurk pockets of social kissers! Avoid, at all cost.
I now have "noooobody knows the huggin' I've seeen" stuck in my head. It's pretty much Walt's fault.
I suspect Americans who social kiss have adopted it out of a desire to seem sophisticated. Putting on air kisses, as it were.
106: Mission accomplished. Now I must go to other comment sections where my special gift is needed.
People kiss socially down here
down where? and there was me thinking that the tick-grooming was outré
To avoid ticks down there, wear pants in the woods.
I kiss socially where it counts.
I count in my teeth, if I need to go past twenty but not past 25.
Growing up in New England taught me that even long-married (and, occasionally, happy) couples did not touch each other affectionately in public. Even now, having spent half my life in one big city or another, I tend to be surprised by the big city hug-and-kiss.
pretentious asshole urbanites
Ok, here's the thing though. All of these social rituals are conventions that you pick up from context. So I'll go months without doing any cheek-kissing, and then maybe go to three occasions in a row where it's the normal, accepted thing. Am I supposed to make the cheek-kissers feel bad?
At Northwestern University, it's a strict rule of only handshakes. Outside the classroom, of course.
Am I supposed to make the cheek-kissers feel bad?
Only if they get handsy at the same time.
114: Yes. You're supposed to punch them in the head and say "That's how we do it in Alberta and/or Saskatchewan!" They'll respect you for your rural authenticity.
Perhaps the real issue is that we waspaloids should widen our circle of acquaintances. I didn't see that much social kissing until I married into a big Greek family. Then it was ubiquitous.
we waspaloids should widen our circle of acquaintances
Like with all the HFCS and transfat-laden food.
118: I don't really mind social kissing, and I have been in situations where it was normal. The claim that it was "an East Coast urban phenomenon" just surprised me. Though New Yorkers have weird notions of geography. For example, I was once told that Philadelphia was in the South. I suppose this is the NYC equivalent of "wogs start at Calais."
I've never been kissed. Unless you count Mom.
I have also only ever been kissed by Pauly Shore's mom. But surely that counts, right?
and Finns don't associate nudity with sex.
Which is why Helsinki dry cleaners are the richest people in the city.
Yeah, mom's always kissing somebody. But I'm her favorite!
we waspaloids should widen our circle of acquaintances.
We should find out what DS does. It's probably something complicated, though.
I have it on good authority that DS only kisses himself, but that people pay to watch.
120: Nah, I just guessed wrong: I figured that NYC norms probably weren't limited to NYC. The only other East Coast city I've lived in was Boston (well, Cambridge), and there I didn't really get off the MIT campus much, so my sense of Boston norms is limited.
127: I wasn't being serious, though I really did have that conversation. (I had a different conversation with a life-long college-educated Manhattanite who thought that Connecticut was between New Jersey and Pennsylvania. I told this story to another New Yorker, who gave me a puzzled look because she thought the same thing.)
65: totally. This is what always throws me off when I'm in Poland--I assume that most people are going to stick with kiss-kiss, but then someone always randomly goes in for a third.
128: That's really weird to me, unless neither of them ever watched the news on TV. I can't see how you could think that if you'd occasionally seen a weather report with a map. Were they both "I don't even own a TV" types?
130: It doesn't even work from a social status point of view.
I am a hugger and a kisser, at slightly higher rates than normal, and am in a circle where several of the men kiss each other on the mouth by way of greeting in a show-off-your-comfort-level kind of way.
It works from a travel-time point of view, right?
130: Actually, yes, they both were, though from opposite ends of the political spectrum. (One was a right-wing Christian who didn't want to be corrupted by secular culture. One was leftier-than-thou.) Thank you TV for educating me so well!
133: If you limit NY to Manhattan, yes. If Queens and the Bronx count, then Connecticut can be closer than Jersey.
(Because her kiss)
Mom's kiss is on my list
(Because her kiss)
Mom's kiss I can't resist
Because her kiss is on my list
Of the best things in life!
Like YOU GUYS!
That's super weird, because what's between CT and NJ? New York, New York that's what!
Even for new yorkers, shouldn't you know that people from CT come into grand central, while people from New Jersey come into Penn station and hence CT and NJ are in different directions?
Though I guess that logic takes a little extra knowledge of commuter train lines that people might not have. After all Long island is the other direction and comes into Penn station.
Penn Station is in New York. That might confuse people.
show-off-your-comfort-level kind of way.
Thereby buying into the basic presuppositions of homophobic discourse.
134: Now I'm kind of stunned by the idea of a right-wing Christian who doesn't want to be corrupted by secular culture who's also such an insular New Yorker that they don't know where Connecticut is. That is one unusual demographic. There's probably a two-square block neighborhood in the east Sixties where all the people like that live.
And also spreading strep throat like a day care center with only one sippy cup.
Ben, on the other hand, sticks to the relative comfort and safety of generically misanthropic discourse.
Look, I have nothing against anthropoi, I just don't think society should encourage that lifestyle.
140: I suppose it's my ungenerous description, rather than the practice, which buys into etc. etc.
The brief moment of determining whether a friendship or acquaintance is at the level of handshakes, hugs, a kiss on the cheek, or "now we turn in opposite directions and walk" is something I'll never quite master. I have it filed in my head with "how do people in languages with honorific levels know which to use when there are so many conflicting determiners" and "how do straight guys know which of those elaborate handshakes to use?" though those seem to be in decline.
though those seem to be in decline.
I know fraternal organizations in general have been having trouble keeping their numbers up, but is it true of the Masons as well?
"how do straight guys know which of those elaborate handshakes to use?
We have a hidden comms link to another straight guy sitting in a van nearby looking it up on the internet. Check our ears next time you see it happen.
One was a right-wing Christian who didn't want to be corrupted by secular culture. One was leftier-than-thou.)
...Together, they fight crime.
141: There's probably a two-square block neighborhood in the east Sixties where all the people like that live.
Semi-on topic re: regional differences:
These "well-being"maps at the Times (data from Gallup) are fun to scroll through. They are by congressional district so more interesting than just by state. In particular you can get a bit micro in the big metropolitan areas and NYC in particular (other than it being a pain to zoom them up where you can see them).
pwned all the way back at 41. Read before posting, Smearcase!
149 is actually reference to a show that hasn't aired yet.
152: A neat thing is that new acquaintances who I feel very much on the same wavelength and comfortable with, I'm very unlikely to hug or kiss, because we manage to mutually convey that we'd rather not, thanks.
we manage to mutually convey that we'd rather not, thanks we prefer light frottage.
I find it amusing that most of my east coast friends, upon taking leave of me, sort of begrudgingly hold out their arms for what they assume is the dreaded hug I'm going to inflict on them as a Californian. I think it made me start being über-touchy, just to fulfill their stereotypes. Not that I ever minded being huggy in the first place, but I usually attempt to put people at ease and not touch them if they shirk away. (I find that I'm at ease with fairly high levels of physical contact that I initiate. When others - who I don't know well - initiate it first, I tend to do that jumpy thing, so I try to be empathetic about it.)
Coming home after a summer in Southern France, I kept attempting to go in for the bisou, bisou, bisou (oh, that third one, how it confused me at first!) with my American friends. This probably wouldn't have been nearly so embarrassing if it hadn't also coincided with my first semester at college.
You know what would make people uncomfortable? If you went in for a hug but kept your arms at your side. Just sort of a body smush. No one would know what the hell to do with you.
Or if you just reached out and honked someone's breast.
That's probably a comprehensive list, though.
160: I don't know, per 155 it's not really dry-humping if it lasts less than a second or two, but leading with the pelvis would probably confuse ,i>some people.
149: I suspected as much. I mean it's downright uncanny. There are so many little handhsake morphemes: plain fist dap, fist dap with explosion, vertical fist dap which requires a "which of us is on top first"* intution, point-at-each-other-gesture in certain douchoise contexts, some regular handshake elements...and then these things have to go in some order. It has, on occasion, given me a tiny nervous breakdown. Sometimes I try to defuse it by saying "oh, you heterosexuals and your ornate handshakes!"
I remember a funny sequence from the preview for some male embarrasment flick that I was definitely not going to see that involved two people both uncertain whether to go in for handshake or hug or what, and they end up sort of jumping up and down with their hands linked or something. If it had been a book, I would have jotted "so true!" in the margin.
*the fruit, it hangs low. I realize this.
I associate kissing on the cheek with:
1) France
2) French-speaking countries (three times in la Suisse Romande, IIRC).
3) American women of a vaguely aspirational continental style and demeanor, which means I've seen it in certain parts of Manhattan or West LA or done with a certain amount of forced affectation elsewhere, but it's certainly not common.
In general, I like kissing on the cheek as a farewell but would never initiate the process. I also bro-hug my bros, including my female bros, which may not be the best idea.
per 155 it's not really dry-humping if it lasts less than a second or two
Similar to "it's only gay if you do it in port."
156: The implicit NASCAR reference is going to inexorably lead to apo or Tweety linking to sites with dinosaurs and lizards having sex with cars.
I read the book by Raymonde Carroll referenced in the FT article around the time I moved to France. I found it quite illuminating, if not necessarily 100% trustworthy.
Among other lessons, he teaches:
French people do not smile at strangers. Americans smile at strangers (or in unfamiliar situations) to communicate "I am not hostile. I am friendly." To a French person, smiling to anyone but a friend is a sign of superficiality or insincerity at best.
French people do not apologize gratuitously in the manner of Americans or especially English (Terribly sorry dear chap..."). Similar logic.
To a Frenchman, a woman sitting alone at a cafe or restaurant is willfully inviting a man to chat her up.
When a French woman comes to your apartment or invites you to her apartment after an evening out, there is no need to seduce her any further; she has already decided to have sex with you.
(For the record, I was already together with Fleur at the time, so I never put the third or fourth lesson to the test.)
Or if you just reached out and honked someone's breast.
Oh, people *definitely* know what the hell to do with you after that.
Americans smile at strangers (or in unfamiliar situations) to communicate "I am not hostile. I am friendly."
This, totally.
To a Frenchman, a woman sitting alone at a cafe or restaurant is willfully inviting a man to chat her up.
This would irritate the hell out of me.
When a French woman comes to your apartment or invites you to her apartment after an evening out, there is no need to seduce her any further; she has already decided to have sex with you.
With caveats about the young and naive and 'no meaning no', is this really limited to the French?
168.last: Adding the additional caveat of it being the sort of relationship that's plausibly going in that direction, I had the same thought.
168.last I was going to say exactly the same thing.
When a French woman comes to your apartment or invites you to her apartment after an evening out, there is no need to seduce her any further; she has already decided to have sex with you.
So you may as well let one rip in the elevator on the way up. The French don't change their mind.
With caveats about the young and naive and 'no meaning no', is this really limited to the French?
I still wouldn't be sure, but I think I fall under naive if not young.
But when you smile at an American, don't show your teeth: they will feel threatened and may charge.
168 last is probably right, but it's also true that opening up one's home is (IM limited E) a much bigger deal in France than in the USA -- it's a more private sphere to begin with, so getting an invite upstairs is more unquestionably intimate.
But when you smile at an American, don't show your teeth
... unless you've had them straightened and whitened or you'll be mocked.
On kissy-face: I know exactly one person who does this -- my undergrad adviser, who is from another country and behaves in a fairly self-consciously "international" way most of the time. It is hella arresting, as I would otherwise go years without even seeing a kissy-face exchange.
To the whole question of social interaction in the Midwest: On Saturday I went out to the bar to visit a friend & former colleague who is waiting tables. Another person in our social circle showed up, so of course, since I was alone and he was going to be talking to our mutual friend, he sat with me. The thing was, he's of serious Norwegian farmer stock, grew up on the farm and everything, and we're not super-close, although we have a few close friends in common. So we're sitting across from each other at this tiny bar table, and it is absolute hell trying to figure out our proper orientation. If we'd been at the bar, we could have both faced forward, and if we'd been standing, we could have arranged ourselves in the standard Midwestern men's 150 degree angle orientation to talk. As it was, we had to keep swiveling back and forth to try to find some way to talk in the noisy bar without actually facing each other, and without looking like we were ignoring each other either. It's a good thing there was alcohol available.
I associate kissing on the cheek with... American women of a vaguely aspirational continental style and demeanor, which means I've seen it in certain parts of Manhattan or West LA or done with a certain amount of forced affectation elsewhere, but it's certainly not common.
Fleur and I are both inveterate cheek kissers, though we come by it honestly. It's actually quite common in the circles we run in, even in the old yankee bastion of PDBS.
But despite being more accustomed to the practice than most Americans, I was taken aback by the extent of cheek-kissing I was expected to engage in with les parents éloignés de Fleur when we recently attended a wedding in France. I'm used to the kiss-upon-introduction with women, but kissing a bunch of dudes I've never met before, just because we're extended family? That was mildly disquieting.
162: Said male embarrassment flick is funny, sweet and less softly misogynistic than some of its cousins.
178: It would be bad to be surprised with a kiss-situation. What if you just put in a handful of Skittles?
A key phase of my angsty teenage rebellion was refusing to go along with our highschool fad of kissing everyone to say hello (all sexes to all sexes, presumably to demonstrate how grownup we were). I refused to go along with it because it's so phony, man, and what if I don't really want to kiss that person?
Anyway, that made for some awkward situations.
179: Which movie is it?
Also, Knecht said he butt-kissed a bunch of dudes because they were family.
the standard Midwestern men's 150 degree angle orientation to talk.
Ha. Very often when I'm talking to someone I look approximately thirty degrees to the left of their face.
Or if you just reached out and honked someone's breast.
Oh, people *definitely* know what the hell to do with you after that.
It all depends on whether you make the little honking noise as you do it. Also, whether they have invited you back up to their apartment.
160: I would like to add "honk, got your nose!" prior to walking away to the list.
183: I think that was written explicitly as a bromantic comedy.
184: One of the things that has freaked me out about being in therapy is that it is REALLY hard to make sufficient eye-contact with my alienist. I wind up doing a lot of "look to the right, look to the left, make eye contact briefly, repeat". Which probably means she's got me pegged as a dangerous psychopath by now. Sigh.
187: I once accidentally wrote a bromantic comedy when I was supposed to be writing a statistical report.
Does your alienist call herself an alienist? So steampunk if she do.
I Love You, Man was an odd film. It totally deviated from most of the genre-expectations. I was actually kinda taken aback after seeing it, that the filmmakers had been able to squeeze so much stuff about the construction and performance of masculinity into a mainstream Hollywood comedy.
190: Sadly, no. She's a good therapist, and has pretty awesome engineer boots, but she is not really that hip.
188: Never having been in therapy, I'd think looking nervous and shifty would be par for the course.
188: If you're uncomfortable with looking her in the eyes, just cut out the eyes in a bunch of pictures of women. Ideally, find women who look like her. Then bring the photos in to your next session to show her how much you like that type of picture.
There are so many little handshake morphemes:
If you didn't join so many secret societies it would save you a ton of money.
196 No I swear these are or were everyday things. I have been in numerous situations where I'm sticking out my hand for, what should we call it, The Classic, and suddenly, with a heavy heart, I realize the other guy is going in for some highly choreographed extravaganza and I'm supposed to know the whole gestural vocabulary.
Any time I hear the word "bromance" I start humming "A Fine [B]romance" to myself only I can't remember how that one part goes.
196: I start humming Bad Romance except it's "Rad Bromance" except I can't hum "Bad Romance" without mashing it up with the Love Boat theme so it ends up something like "The LOVE BOAT, and yooou're caught in a RAD BROMANCE, the LOVE BOAT..." etc.
I start humming "A Rad Bromance".
OT: Assuming veracity, how pissed/despondent should I be at this?
Tweety pwned, except for that Love Boat stuff, which is just silly.
On the proper angle for dudely conversations tip, the combination of my deaf ear and loud environments forces me to do this kind of ducking thing where I am facing slightly away from somebody (so that my good ear faces them) while simultaneously looking at their mouth (which helps with comprehension) and trying not to seem like some kind of cringing weirdo. It is not an easy trick to pull off. Also, people will often try to talk loudly into my deaf ear, forcing me to do this kind of rapid head movement to try and get my good ear into listening position. That must come off as pretty strange. I much prefer dancing at nightclubs to trying to actually talk. And I really don't do well trying to talk to new people at loud bars. If you meet me at a bar and I seem to be tuning out and staring into space, it's probably because I can't hear worth a damn and have sort of given up on trying.
Now, irritatingly, I'm humming "A Fine Romance".
"A fine romance, my dear fellow,
You take romance, and I'll take Jell-o..."
196- This danger is real. I once accidentally went for the Classic Handshake when the other guy was going for the Fist Bump. Chaos ensued when I actually gripped his closed fist in my hand and shook it. Let this be a warning to all.
I much prefer dancing at nightclubs to trying to actually talk
141: She might have been from that two-block radius. She grew up on the Upper East Side, though I don't know exactly where. Is there a secret fundamentalist Christian ghetto there?
"A Fine Romance" isn't so bad if you keep Louis Armstrong's voice in your head.
Also, I've seen 202 happen. It is weirdly intimate and makes everyone uncomfortable. I hope one day to see it happen again.
162 I mean it's downright uncanny. There are so many little handhsake morphemes: plain fist dap, fist dap with explosion, vertical fist dap which requires a "which of us is on top first"* intution, point-at-each-other-gesture in certain douchoise contexts, some regular handshake elements...and then these things have to go in some order. It has, on occasion, given me a tiny nervous breakdown. Sometimes I try to defuse it by saying "oh, you heterosexuals and your ornate handshakes!"
I've never done any of these things beyond a standard handshake. Maybe I'm secretly not heterosexual after all, and the handshake-related part of my brain is just the first to figure it out.
Maybe I'm secretly not heterosexual after all
I can test that for you.
205.2: Just follow me around. Where most people say "Take care" or "Goodbye", I say "I'm not sure what we're doing".
Hugging yes, kissing no. (New Englander here.)
The problem with hugging just everybody and anybody is that it strips the practice of meaning, no? That is, I hug to signal fondness and affection: it actually means something if I hug a friend/acquaintance/family member. After my mom died, I took to hugging my uncle (my mom's brother) upon greeting and leave-taking. These are New Hampshire folks who don't ordinarily do such things, but I with my city ways felt the urge to introduce something new: I hug you, uncle, because you just lost your sister, and I lost my mom, and I want to mark the fact that I love you, uncle, which is something we never felt the need to express before.
207: Not without compromising the "secret" part.
The problem with hugging just everybody and anybody is that it strips the practice of meaning, no?
Or it invests it with meaning, e.g. that we can make the world a more indiscriminately affectionate place. It's not for everybody, but I like that world.
211: Good point, definitely.
It really depends on the perspective from which you come at the matter: if hugging indiscriminately (nothing wrong with that; it's great; I'm a hippie) is the norm, then withholding a hug seems a peevish and odd thing. If hugging is not at all the norm, presenting yourself with open arms is an affirmative act.
I do want to draw a distinction between profligate hugging which doesn't signal affection -- is just a mindless ritual -- and profligate hugging which does. I think there is a big difference between east and west coasts here.
Perhaps someone has mentioned this in the interim, but 158 sounds a lot like a chest bump, which tends to be casually accompanied with a stomach-level mutual wrist-grab. I've done it.
Chest bump sounds fine as long as both people are about the same height. Or it would turn into a head butt, and bad things might eventuate.
I don't think anyone above has mentioned the "Christian Side Hug" phenomenon, but this Wikipedia article about it is strange and confusing. It started off as a joke song making fun of the CSH, but was then reinforced as a good standard practice, about which we have a sense of humor? The video may be helpful to those unaware of it. (Pardon if this is linked somewhere in the thread. I'M AT WORK and exhausted.)
214: I think you'd also want to grease-up the chests to prevent friction from causing problems.
To avoid confusion, I just double-leg to sidemount and transition to North-South.
209: This is why I have two hugs in my repertoire: the bro hug and the chest-to-chest hug. Really special folks get the extra squeeze-before-letting-go version of the latter.
Meanwhile, I have a conference coming up next week, which means that I'll be doing plenty of both, along with puzzling out the number of expected kisses, trying to discern whether we're shaking hands or bumping fists, and interspersing my usual level of flirtation with reminders that I'm married, and for me that entails monogamy. Anyone else going to be in Montreal over St. Patrick's Day?
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I have created a Robot Flickr account
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215: I assumed the bro hug and the CSH were the same thing.
People actually do chest bumps? People who haven't just scored a touchdown or crossed home plate?
Poop: The Wikipedia Disambiguation Page.
218, 221: I miss North-South's old name.
trying to discern whether we're shaking hands or bumping fists
Do white people who aren't bros really do fist bumps, in casual greeting? I haven't encountered it.
Do white people who aren't bros really do fist bumps, in casual greeting?
I'm not sure if I fall into the "not a bro" category, at least by the standards of this particular forum, but otherwise, yes.
reminders that I'm married, and for me that entails monogamy
Our folkways rock.
Do white people who aren't bros really do fist bumps, in casual greeting?
Yes.
229: the dreaded 69 choke! They stopped calling it that when the UFC started getting mainstream attention.
I guessed 69, but choke? I did once hear Joe Rogan refer to the rape choke. I'm betting that did not go down well with Dana White.
For a time, its more polite name was The Monson Choke.
228: Now that you've ruined my element of surprise, what the hell am I supposed to do with this Smirnoff Ice?
I think the Monson choke is done from NS, but you need arms like the Snowman to pull it off.
233: Pretend you only like it ironically?
229-232: It's like they have a different word for everything!
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Fucking Laugh Riot ...Marcy Wheeler
Continued law of war detention is warranted for a detainee subject to the periodic review in section 3 of this order if it is necessary to protect against a significant threat to the security of the United States.
...but I might vote Green and say bad things about the President. Does that make me...not until way way before the Revolution, such that good change will never happen. Never.
Federalizing Loughner charges to the moon down in Arizona. What's the phrasing:"...interfering with the exercise of civil rights?" ...no..."acting against a Federal interest", I think
|>
I'd associated it with rich/educated northeasterners rather than with big cities.
The only Americans I know who do the kiss on the cheek thing are all from the New York metro.
Most of the cheek kissing I see is in my union, among people who grew up working class in all parts of the country and mostly didn't go to college. Stick that in your stereotypes and smoke it.
238: I don't understand what elicited your response, or what the quoted passages have to do with stereotypes. The white non-Hispanic working class in Philadelphia is my native people, and they don't do the cheek kiss, unless they only do it when I'm not in the room.
240: Not just the quoted passages, but there've been a number of comments suggesting that the kissy Americans are upper-class urban types putting on airs and trying to act European. See, e.g., comments 93, 101 ("pretentious asshole urbanites"), 107, and 163. Kraab is offering her union brethren and sistren as a counterexample.
240: I'm confused by your confusion.
On preview, what LB said.
FWIW, I have friends who do the kissy thing and friends who don't, and I don't think the kissy ones are any more continental or putting on airs than the ones who don't. I've never worked out who will or won't, though, so either they initiate it, or I just smile nervously from a couple of feet away and then buy beer.
Hispanics with no class airs hug and kiss strangers all the time, including male-male.
238: It's the "stick it in your stereotype and smoke it" that I'm bristling at.
244: You went to the Mummers Parade? That's awesome. When I was a teenager, I decided it was lame and boring, but as an adult I dragged my wife to it, and was surprised what an amazing experience it is. If you stuck it in Barcelona, people would write it think-pieces on how it revealed the essential Catalan spirit. Yet it seems outside of the immediate area, no one has even heard of it.
246.1: If you take it as proportionate response to the sum of the comments I listed negatively describing kissers, including "pretentious asshole urbanites", is it less bristleworthy? Or, in other words, can't we all just be brothers?
247: Depends. Do brothers kiss?
I apologize to all for impugning the motives of American air kissers for a bad joke. I recognize that some may be sincere practitioners of their annoying, pretentious tradition.
246.1: Do we need to be accurate with our retorts now?
250: you're darn tootin', frenchy!
250: Well, I don't know how they do things in Pittsburgh, but here in the Real America, we're very precise. Except on New Years Day, when we're too busy wearing uncomfortable costumes and playing banjos.
Has gcc always returned "invalid use of member" error messages, and they just never struck me as amusing before? Or maybe I never abused a member before.
255: Or maybe I never abused a member before.
Wrong thread.
The brief moment of determining whether a friendship or acquaintance is at the level of handshakes, hugs, a kiss on the cheek, or "now we turn in opposite directions and walk" is something I'll never quite master.
In the coming cyborg utopia, you'll be able to see this info on your augmented-reality display, as determined by your individual preferences & the connection between the two of you.
Of course, two weeks later the machines will enslave us all.
257.2 seems like foursquare is nearly there. Or maybe fucksquare.
Do we need to be accurate with our retorts now?
SOME OF US MANAGE. MORE SHOULD, TOO.
I read the book by Raymonde Carroll referenced in the FT article around the time I moved to France. I found it quite illuminating, if not necessarily 100% trustworthy.
Having spent much of the day with attractive, smart, and personable German gender-theory academics: is there a reliable, analogous book for German mores? Especially re: flirting, usw.
177: hilarious and poignant.
184: Ha. Very often when I'm talking to someone I look approximately thirty degrees to the left of their face.
Me three! Actually, I've gotten a lot better, at least when I remember the trick of faking eye-contact by looking right between (and a little above) their eyes.
I find the Bay Area huggier than Seattle but not kissy in normal circs. However, I had my hand kissed this weekend and it was damn fine. However however, we were essentially doing participatory theater. I don't know if i will be better off if those habits stick. I guess I'll be increasing everyone else's uncertainty.
A friend of mine who had previously greeted/parted with hugs came back one summer and had adopted the fake kiss in the air thing. Either that, or our friendship had moved from one category to the other. I was not warned of this and it's fortunate that no noses were broken in our greeting.
Also, someone has linked this, right? I don't have time to read the thread.
246: Yes, I was there! Those aren't my photos, because I don't have talent like that. Also, I sort of blew my party capacity on NYE because I didn't really understand how much is expected of New Year's Day in Philly. Damn, that was grueling.
264 reminds me that I recently had the rewarding experience of sharing the Secret to Successful High Fives (stare at the elbow of the incoming arm) with someone who'd never heard of it. Said person has been elated about the trick ever since.
before reading any of this, i'm going to say its just like any other stereotype: has some p value of note, but not always right. And only true for the bulk of the subcultures that constitute the named culture, and only true of the bulk of cliques that make up the subculture, and if you interviewed all the people in a clique they wouldn't all agree on the norm, and people are schizophrenic (not in the DSMIV sense) as individuals.
but still sort of useful.
and i may have misused constitute, since i do that a lot.
i also may have spent 80% of the last two days drinking whisky and reading tvtropes. Which is like the ____ version of charlie sheen, help with the metaphore? [strike]manic[/s]depressive?
Which is like the ____ version of charlie sheen, help with the metaphore? [strike]manic[/s]depressive?
Vatican bouncer stage magician?
Let me rephrase: Vatican bouncer illusionist.
Essear has a different word for everything.
hm. i'm guess thats right there is someone who posts here, who is reading an obscure book about a protagonist who is getting a phD in obscure 14th centurure economics who encouters a writings of a vatican con artists who describes solid state banking methodes. i myself may have a wiki entry on this, somewhere in the Deep Chache.
Which is like the Charles Bukowski on "Gilligan's Island" version of charlie sheen
Londoners will touch people to push them out of the way, or will bump into them because they can't be fucking arsed to watch where they are going because they are so busy and important being busy and important.
The bumping into, the general refusal to acknowledge that other people have physical existence, let alone needs, wants, desires, etc.: this has gotten pretty bad in the UK capital. Taxi drivers are beginning to look like positive role models for their kindness and patience.
i also may have spent 80% of the last two days drinking whisky and reading tvtropes. Which is like the ____ version of charlie sheen
The chrysalis version of Charlie Sheen. Nurtured through your dormancy on ambrosia and the collected wisdom of pop culture, you eventually emerge, and astound the world.
166: Huh, on the apology thing. Whenever I've gone into a shop or had to deal with an airline person in France, "I've always prefaced my remarks with, "I'm sorry to bother you, but." This always seems to go over well.
I never heard of Charlie Sheen until last week. Life was beautiful, then.
Find an analysts, Natilo. Then you don't have to worry about eye contact at all. You just lie on the couch.
One of my clients is Haitian, and I just saw her after vacation. She said, "Come here, give me a kiss." That mounted to a quick hug. She's quite fond of me, and I don't think she does that to everyone.
BG has cloned herself. If this spreads to the rest of the commentariat, I predict interesting times.
I grew up in London and always assumed I'd live there forever. Realising how much nicer people are in the rest of the country was a major part of why I decided not to.
I have to admit, I sort of love Charlie Sheen. Two and a Half Men is always on tv on some channel or other, and is my staple background noise once everyone else has gone to bed.
Ah, well, I'm the reverse. I grew up elsewhere but when I realised what an unpleasant person I had become I decided I'd better move to London where I'd stand out less.
She said, "Come here, give me a kiss." That mounted to a quick hug.
That s/b Then
to s/b for
Huh, on the apology thing. Whenever I've gone into a shop or had to deal with an airline person in France, "I've always prefaced my remarks with, "I'm sorry to bother you, but." This always seems to go over well.
You know, I almost mentioned that as a caveat in my comment, because this is exactly right. For getting service personnel to pay attention to your concerns, the "Excusez-moi, Madame/Monsieur, de vous déranger, mais..." is quasi-obligatory. Which is to say, it's not a *gratuitous* apology, but an instrumental one. Its very rarity underscores the self-abasement involved.
244-246: Somehow the only time in my life I went to the Mummers Parade was at the age of two, when reportedly I threw up a lot. I think my parents interpreted it as commentary and never brought us back. It's a shame, we lived close by.
BG has cloned herself. If this spreads to the rest of the commentariat, I predict interesting times.
More or less interesting depending on the commenter.
My aunt (who has lived in Boston or NH for most of her life, I think) is a Francophile (speaks the language more than she needs to socially or professionally, is interested in geneology on the French side of the family) and also sometimes does the cheek-kissing-on-hello-and-goodbye thing. Pace 163, I've always assumed those two facts were related, but maybe it's just a coincidence. It's possible that the cheek-kissing was just a phase with her or something, because I just saw her in Paris and as far as I remember no one's cheek got kissed.
Personally, I'm not a touchy-feely person at all. I hug or kiss my girlfriend all we feel like, and I hug family hello and goodbye, and on a special occasion like "goodbye because you're moving across the country" I hug friends, but for day-to-day or week-to-week stuff I wave. I shook hands like a Congressman when I was a reporter; today, friends are the people I'm not required to touch.
The linked article totally forgot to include a list of how many times you are supposed to kiss people in a greeting, depending on where you are/where they're from. I constantly get thrown off by whether or not we're done after 2 kisses or if we're still going back for a third.
You're welcome. If you drag the mouse it will show the breakdown by department.
Having grown up in a kissing but non hugging culture and being rather shy of physical contact, I had a bit of trouble adjusting to the American tendency to hug everyone. Kissing is normal and instinctive, three times. That led to some very awkward situations in college, ranging from head butting to inadvertent lip kisses. Conveniently enough, both the Polish and Genevan number match (three times). Some subsegments of Polish society still do male to male hello and goodbye kissing (rural areas, older people). Fortunately the Polish eighties/early nineties retro hand kissing revival seems to have died out.
combien de bise
The four kisses apparently popular in the old Capetian heartland strikes me as taking the piss. There isn't enough time in the world, and your taxi driver will have gone home in a huff by the time you finish.
And who are these fools answering "5"? How big is the crazification factor in French polling?
Agreed. By the time you get beyond three you might as well just get a room.
Some people will just take and take. Or it could be that putting 5 on the poll is a good way of weeding out lying psychos, like how on our high school drug poll, it allowed you to answer which drugs you've done in the past hour. Most students answered that, yes, we'd done opiates, meth, coke, marijuana, etc., all within the last hour, and our last sexual activity was 30 minutes ago.
294: was this at Northwestern by any chance?
If applications to Northwestern take a big jump next year, I will be prepared to accept the existence of a caring, loving God.
293: It could be an evolutionary arms race, like peacock feathers. In two generations, the French average will be up to 26.
I've never met anybody in France who does one or five. IME three is the most common, then four (contra the map, Parisians seem into that), then two. Of course my experience of French people is heavily weighted towards the Genevan suburbs, so not all that representative. Most people also don't do the pure air kiss things Americans do; it's a few quick pecks on the cheek. It's a lot less intimate and time consuming than the American hug thing.